I’m tired of looking for opinionated women like me in fiction and finding nothing but anger and aggression. I think this character type is a symptom of radical feminism. Radical feminists think this is a symptom of the patriarchy. But that debate is not what I’m here for—I’m here to talk about one character done right.
The Fox television series Fringe ran quietly from 2008 to 2013 but has acquired a larger fan base since showing up on Netflix. It’s a sci-fi show similar in form to The X-Files, and it features the most empowering and relatable female character I have come across since reading Jane Eyre when I was thirteen.
Olivia Dunham, performed by Anna Torv, is interesting in many of the usual senses—she’s beautiful, she’s a fighter, she’s enigmatic—but somehow, she isn’t limited to these stereotypes of fictional females. Her beauty is muted by simple clothes and unstyled hair, her fighting is never sexualized, and her reserved nature is actually explained as the series progresses. Olivia aims to care for people, and no element of this aim, whether taking out mad scientists or playing with her niece, feels stilted or insincere.
A key feature of Fringe’s healthy approach to femininity is its portrayal of emotion, beginning with Olivia’s emotional intensity and continuing on as an important theme for all characters, male included. Early in season one, Olivia’s boss criticizes her impassioned approach to a case. She gives a rebuttal at the end of the episode, saying:
“I understand that you think I acted too emotionally. And putting aside the fact that men always say that about women they work with I’ll get straight to the point. I am emotional. I do bring it into my work. It’s what motivates me. Helps me get into the headspace of our victims, see what they’ve seen, even if I don’t want to, even if it horrifies me. And I think it makes me a better agent. If you have a problem with that, sorry. You can fire me. But I hope you don’t.”
Olivia is never effusive. She states her case here steadily, but with steel in her eyes. As the episodes go by, Torv balances Olivia’s fire, introversion, and passion with startling elegance. Olivia can fight her way out of captivity and weep at the shock of it all in one episode. As she falls in love with a member of her team, Peter, she hesitates and initiates their relationship in raw but halting phrases. In short, she is allowed to contradict herself.
As the show progresses, the Fringe team begins to feel more and more familial, and Olivia softens. I think this is the most important step in Olivia’s growth as a character, and a point when her arc diverges from that of other “strong” female characters. Seeking love and family is often seen as a cheap writing trick, a buy-in to the idea that all women should be wives and mothers. Yet Olivia drives this process herself, and this softness and willingness to forgive elevates her role as a person who protects people’s lives to a person who also gives those lives meaning. By watching Olivia, I finally found the conflicted but ultimately redemptive character I had been looking for.
